Priestly Clough

[john conway]

Originally Posted by JCB

How did you manage to keep at river level ? The last time I tried to get down to that part of the clough where the Red Barn and two pipes are it was all fenced off and barbed wired off .

There was a fence of sorts but it was easy to pass. I also had my dog with me and I didn't lift it over any obstuctions. The only thing I was concerned about was she kept taking small drinks of the water as we zig zagged across the beck. The water still looks a bit industrial.
I've attached a pic (if it works) of the old cottage at the start of my off the path walk up to the Red Barn field. If this works I'll attach a few of the pipes we use to cross as kids.

[john conway]

OK here's three more pics. The first is the bit of a jungle where there was a fence of sorts. In the beck there is a small water fall. The next pic is the Red Barn Field, don't know where the big pipes came from they weren't there when I was a kid. The last on is the Red Barn field pipe, just before the clough narrows.

[john conway]

OK the last four pics.
The first is the clough above Red Barn, the next is the second pipe over the beck. The third is the bridge just before five arches and the last one is the bridge that replaced the five arches.

[gdm27]

Originally Posted by john conway

OK the last four pics.
The first is the clough above Red Barn, the next is the second pipe over the beck. The third is the bridge just before five arches and the last one is the bridge that replaced the five arches.

Takes me back abit this photo's, thanks for taking them! Not much of a bridge to replace the 5 arches!!!!

[JCB]

Originally Posted by john conway

There was a fence of sorts but it was easy to pass. I also had my dog with me and I didn't lift it over any obstuctions. The only thing I was concerned about was she kept taking small drinks of the water as we zig zagged across the beck. The water still looks a bit industrial.
I've attached a pic (if it works) of the old cottage at the start of my off the path walk up to the Red Barn field. If this works I'll attach a few of the pipes we use to cross as kids.

Thanks . I'll have a look around where you have taken the photo .

[gdm27]

Anyone know if the stream/beck through the clough had a name??

[davidf]

First, absolutely loved looking at John Conway's photos - thanks v much; second, my maps name the stream "Woodnook Water".

[Margaret Pilkington]

Yes it is Woodnook Water...or at least that is what we always knew it as.

As for those pipes going across the beck...they were there when I was a child(there were three sections of the beck crossed by wide pipes)........though they did not have the metal 'frill' on them to prevent you from walking along the pipe . I know this because my brother was once showing off.......walking along the pipe like a tightrope walker.......pride comes before a fall...and fall off he did, into the water.......got his school blazer soaked and his bum tanned when we got back home to Riley's Hill.
My memories are from the late fifties(57/58)

[maxthecollie]

Was that your Mick?

[Margaret Pilkington]

It was indeed. We went up to the five arches after he fell in he brook. We dare not go home.
Ma would have skinned us alive.
We made a fire under the arches to try and dry his clothes, but we were sprung because we reeked of smoke when we got in - that and the fact that his green blazer had run into his white shirt. We all got leathered for our pains. Me, because I was the eldest and should have known better.

[cashman]

Originally Posted by maxthecollie

Was that your Mick?

Who was a mate of mine back in 60s, Still mates but rarely see each other these days.

[Margaret Pilkington]

See Cashy...we are almost related

[Retlaw]

Originally Posted by Margaret Pilkington

Yes it is Woodnook Water...or at least that is what we always knew it as.

As for those pipes going across the beck...they were there when I was a child(there were three sections of the beck crossed by wide pipes)........though they did not have the metal 'frill' on them to prevent you from walking along the pipe . I know this because my brother was once showing off.......walking along the pipe like a tightrope walker.......pride comes before a fall...and fall off he did, into the water.......got his school blazer soaked and his bum tanned when we got back home to Riley's Hill.
My memories are from the late fifties(57/58)

Those pipes were installed to divert the efluent from the dye works up Bash till it went past the mills on the factory bottom, before that the mill owners were up in arms about it, the dirty water was damaging their boilers, they had frills on those pipes when I first saw them, that was before you were born.

[Gaffer]

Just stumbled across this old thread. I grew up in Woodnook - Hudson Street in the 60's.
Priestly Clough was our playground too.
Picnics and paddling - the water wasn't that bad IIRC.
Just hearing the name 5 arches, brings it flooding back!
I brought my now wife up there back in the 70s to show her what a special place it was and ended up proposing to her on the bridge which is down at the lodge end if I remember correctly.
As a nipper, I remember the steam trains struggling up the hill to Baxenden - clouds of steam billowing up over the valley.

On another topic - we were still breaking in to the shelter under Riley Hill in the late 60s.
It was a labyrinth of passages... at the end of each it formed a 'Y', and then another, making a honeycomb pattern. There were escape holes and hatches buried in the hill, which several groups of kids unearthed. It was bulldozed in the 70s I think, but it was a great place for an adventure!

[Margaret Pilkington]

I lived on Riley's Hill and only knew of one of those tunnels.
I thought they were part of the coal workings which went under the hill.
As children we were warned about going into these workings. My mother told us she would 'skelp our aces' if she ever heard about us having been in there.....she was a formidable woman(she still is) so I never ventured in there......that isn't to say our lads didn't......but they were never found out if they did.